


Addiction

by orphan_account



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Character Study, Gen, One Shot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-05
Updated: 2019-12-05
Packaged: 2021-02-26 07:46:59
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21679969
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: There's a hole in his chest. It tears further, each time he experiments and tests his limits in order to sate his never-ending dissatisfaction.





	Addiction

Tom riddle always plotted. Planned. Any word to describe his meticulous habit to drag things out, clear the fogginess of any situation, and turn everything around to benefit him.

There was a certain charm to him. Magic, if you will. It drew attention, from the very corner of his eyes to his soft lips.

He learned of his influence on others relatively quickly; it was through the lingering glances in the orphanage, then the hushed whispers about him at Hogwarts, and the amusingly obedient, yet fearful faces of his followers.

Despite all this, he still felt lacking.

An emptiness in his entire being that could not be explained.

He began experimenting with dark magic, the scent of it hanging onto his stature and leaking out as a cold, oppressive aura. Ones sensitive to magic could feel the threads fraying, causing sparks in the forms of more regular moments of anger, more emotion.

Over time, he grew.. impatient. The dark magic that had half sated him before slowly faded into nothing, only widening the crater in his chest. He searched- oh, he searched- for another way, another path to fill his emptiness. But he had turned up with no results, only progressively sinking into the black hole of temptation offered by the dark. He had already sunk his feet too deep and couldn't get out.

Horcruxes corrupted his very soul, in the literal sense. He felt less each time he split himself in half, leaving the fragment within a relic he treasured.

Needless to say, everything became an addiction. Tom began his reign as Voldemort, had followers kissing his feet, opposing forces rising and falling... no, there was still dissatisfaction.

Not unlike a child, he began to throw tantrums, only in the forms of massacres and grand speeches that he knew were for himself and nobody else- to convince himself that there was a goal in mind.

Until, a prophecy arrived.

There was no value to be recognized when he first experienced it through the chapped lips of a certain potions master. He merely thought it to be vile, disgusted at the fact that he would be predicted to fall to a mere baby.

With anger, came fear, then planning.

He dutifully used and used the cowards bowed to him, restlessly attempting to rid the threat. The acts were unfamiliar to him, for it had been decades since he fretted over anything, previously arrogant in his every move.

A flash of green erupted from his own wand, the familiar feeling of his soul tearing apart once more slipping from his senses from his entire body crumbling.

No. That wasn't how he was supposed to end. His horcruxes passed his mind, and though he knew that he had tethers to the Earth, there was still uncertainty. A rush of adrenaline covered him from head to toe, eyes bloodshot and filled with something akin to thrill.

In the moment that the killing curse had rebounded, Tom had laughed excruciatingly to himself in his head. A fine scene it was, a previously senseless Dark Lord only now experiencing an obstacle, a pebble on the road, in front of a child of all things!

'No matter how long it takes.'

Tom, with perhaps more madness than any other occasion, defined his very purpose to return to the living world with the final thought that closed the curtains on his short and sudden disappearance from the nursery in the Potters' residence.

'I will come back, to repay. To have you know of horror, and everything capable of hurt.'

**Author's Note:**

> Surprisingly, I had energy to make this short one-shot into existence, even though I've been away from writing anything for a long time. I'm unsure of any continuation, but perhaps in the future, because I really am fond of this idea; Voldemort building and building up things he cannot let go of, attaching himself to a single idea and goal excessively until he conquers or eliminates.
> 
> Thank you to all that took the time to read. :)


End file.
